English learners still behind in Berkeley schools despite some gains

"Eighth-grade Longfellow Middle School English students sit in class. File photo: Natalie Orenstein Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) staff have reported notable progress among Latino students, but new data presented at the year's first board meeting show that English learners (especially long-term students) continue to lag far behind their peers in academic achievement and college readiness. District staff presented this information in its annual update on BUSD's Latinx Resolution and its Multilingual Learner Master Plan, which was created in 2013"

"Recent data from the California School Dashboard shows that BUSD Latino students reached the state's highest performance level blue in English language arts assessments for the first time, with a 20-point jump from the previous year. California's dashboard uses a color scale to depict academic performance, with blue, green, yellow, orange and red in descending order. English learners as a group are in the yellow category, with 10% deemed proficient in English language and 18% deemed proficient in math."

"According to the dashboard, about 50% of English learners made progress toward English proficiency last school year, down from 57% the year before. Though for long-term English learners students classified as English learners for at least 6 years 57% made progress toward proficiency last school year,up from52% the year before. Last year, 132 multilingual learners were reclassified to fluent English proficiency a significant decline from the 232 students who w"

Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) shows progress among Latino students alongside persistent gaps for English learners. Approximately 600 multilingual students are enrolled, concentrated in lower grade levels; almost half speak Spanish and Arabic is the second most common first language at nearly 12%. Latino students reached the highest ELA performance level (blue) with a 20-point improvement. English learners are categorized as yellow: about 10% proficient in English, 18% proficient in math, and just under 30% career-and-college ready. About 50% made progress toward English proficiency last year, down from 57% the year before.

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